i hope you're ready because today's video
is jam-packed with wood diys for hold on much better today we're
diying for christmas in july this is whiskey and went my name's whitney and on
this channel i love to share diys and budget home decor content so if you like that too be sure
to hit subscribe so we can beat craft buddies now for the past few years i have loved doing
wood projects for christmas in july because it allows me to get a lot of the pieces that i want
to make done well ahead of time before it gets really cold here in illinois so we're going to
head to the hardware store we're going to pick up some super affordable fence pickets and i've
got a ton of inspiration for you today to get you jump started on the christmas season and you can
also sell all of these projects as well to make extra money for christmas so win-win up first we
are gonna make these super easy but really cute wood skis as we use fence pickets throughout this
video we're gonna use a few different kinds from the traditional dog ear like this to some of the
more pointed ones that we're gonna use for these skis now mine were outside so keep that in mind
as you're looking and i got mine from menards but you can get yours from any hardware store and the
pricing is going to be comparable especially if you live somewhere with a cold winter like i do
summer is a great time to buy them so for these skis i grabbed two pointed fence pickets and at
menards they ended up being $3.58 for two of them now while i'm looking at the wood i'm going to
hold it up and look straight down it like this to make sure it is not curved there's plenty to
choose from so make sure you get a good piece of wood without a ton of knots as well so i'm going
in with my power sander i'm sanding the whole thing and then i'm going to curve the ends so it
looks more like a ski i'm doing that by rocking my wrist around each of the corners and that's
going to help a sand it down and b have it be more of a curved look instead of so pointed then
i'm grabbing one of my favorite stain colors briar smoke by verithane and i'm staining both of my
skis now you can decorate yours however you want i decided to do varsity type lines at the end so
i'm using one inch painters tape to tape off that i started with one piece at the bottom flush with
the bottom of my ski then i'm using a spacer piece putting another piece and then in the middle i
ended up using two widths of the one-inch painters tape so i had a thicker stripe in the middle if
you plan to put these outside i would recommend sealing with a polycrylic or a polyurethane
and i also decided to add this really cute ski lift sign it was really easy to make i grabbed
some of these craft wood letters from hobby lobby but you can get them at any craft store and i
just spray painted them white it was quicker than hand painting them i glued them onto a scrap
stained piece of fence picket that i had from other projects later in the video added an arrow
and some jute twine and this thing is ready to go this video was also a collab with some of my
absolute favorite crafty friends here on youtube it's organized by shannon from the daily diyer
and the cozy christmas cottage if you didn't know shannon has a second channel that she kicks off
in july and it runs all the way through christmas and she shares a ton of great christmas specific
content over there so all that info will be linked down below as well as a playlist so you can
check out everybody's video and you will have a ton of inspiration to get your wheels turning
for christmas for the rest of the video we are going to be using variations of these dog-eared
fence pickets for this one i am using one that is six inches wide by four feet tall now i'm starting
by trimming out lengths of this wide planked board for these gingerbread houses i'm about to make so
once i have the size i'm going to mark the center and then i'm cutting 45 degree angles on either
side to the center of my board to create a little house shape now if you have a miter box you can
do this as well i'm just using a chop saw i did a similar thing to some scrap 2×4 that i wanted to
share with you my brother had this in his workshop but i cut 245 degree angles on that 2×4 and then
made three different sizes of houses for the same project another option too is if you have a jigsaw
you can cut out more intricate shapes i decided to do a house with a chimney here now to start making
these look like christmas i'm taking the color nutmeg brown and acrylic paint and painting
everything all sides top bottom the whole nine then once it dries it's time to ice them so i'm
using some puffy paint to get the look of icing i did this last year in my christmas baking video
so if you like gingerbread you've got to check that out this is super easy i just pulled up some
images of a variety of gingerbread houses and used the puffy paint it's pretty easy to squeeze and
draw because it's got a fine tip and it's also really easy to make it look like icing so here
i'm just flooding the roof of my two by fours and creating little drips so it looks like the
icing is nice and fresh and hot and just dripping off of those gingerbread houses these are super
easy to make and i am so excited to add these to my gingerbread decor in the new house and these
would also make a great addition to a vendor booth or something you could throw up on facebook
marketplace to sell locally in your community you could crank out a bunch of these on a weekend and
make some extra cash for christmas these three here are all the fence picket ones and they do
stand up on their own as well which is a huge plus now if you peep that gingerbread lane sign i'm
going to show you how you can create a really fun christmas sign super cheap without a cricut
so i'm grabbing some thinner fence pickets which are about four inches wide and i'm going to use my
miter box to cut a piece to about 20 inches wide this is something you can get really inexpensively
over on amazon it comes with the yellow box i'm using here as well as the saw you can do straight
cuts as well as 45 degree angles and it allows you to make projects like this without a big saw
now i cut two pieces of my 1 by 2 for the top and the bottom just the same length and then i cut two
pieces on either side to finish out my framing now that's totally optional i just like to frame out
my signs then i'm going to stain all of the frames as well as the back of my sign in briar smoke that
just makes the back of your sign look finished if you put it on a table or something then you don't
have to worry about the unfinished wood after i painted the opposite side white then it was time
to grab some more of those letters that i used on that ski lodge sign and create what i wanted
to say i decided to do gingerbread lane i spray painted them with some matte red spray paint it's
just a lot easier than getting into all the nooks and crannies of these little intricate letters and
then i'm taking my detailed glue gun and gluing them all down i used some painters tape to help
me make sure everything was going to be straight and then i decided i wanted to add a little bit
more red to the sign so i just added a little stripe underneath with some more painters tape
once that was all dry it was time to assemble and so i started with the pieces that were flush
so that's the top and bottom trim piece i'm using a nail gun but this is a simple project you could
easily use a hammer and finishing nails to add these on this is a really quick and easy way to
make some of these fun signs especially if you don't have a way to cut out a stencil you could
also cricket this obviously or you could head to places like michael's hobby lobby joanne's to get
some stencils they've got some fun christmas ones usually every year so the sky's the limit but with
a fence picket this is like a four dollar sign i have been wanting to make a new christmas card
display for a while now and i thought these fence pickets would be perfect so i'm grabbing three
of those wide planked ones these are the six inch across and i am then taking a scrap
piece of my thinner one so the four inch wide to mark and cut some braces so they don't have to
be perfect you just want to make sure that they stretch across all three pieces so you can brace
it and hook them together i also decided to take off the dog ear on the top so it would be straight
before i sanded but you could leave that and not need a saw for that portion then i am staining all
of my pieces including the braces with briar smoke letting them dry overnight and then we're gonna
assemble our sign so the three braces go right on the back and then i'm using one inch nails with
my nail gun on all these projects the one inch is perfect if you don't have a nail gun you could
do screws or a hammer and nails to hook them all together then i wanted to add a little personality
to it so i decided to create a stencil out of magic cover from dollar tree and i'm going
to talk a little bit more about that later but it is really easy i just cut it on the washi
setting and it's a cheap way to create a stencil so this says what's a christmas gram i want one
from the movie elf it's one of my favorites you guys know i die on the hill of christmas vacation
is the best christmas movie but elf is definitely a close second i've got a full video of elf
inspired diys if you want to check that out but here i'm just going through with a foam brush and
tapping up and down you want to make sure that it is a light coat so it doesn't go underneath your
stencil but then once you do that you can peel it off and you've got a really fun little saying if
you don't have a cricut but want to make something similar you can grab some of those wood letters
from hobby lobby and you could add those to it or you could just leave it that rustic color and
you could use it to display things all year round so once that was done i needed to add something
for my duke twine to hang from so i could actually clip up my cards so i just added some
little one-inch finish nails to either side and then i painted some of these really cute wood
light bulbs i got these from amazon they were an impulse buy and i love them i painted them red
and green and strung them up on some jute twine then i just started wrapping it around using those
nails on the back so then that way everything is going to be all nice and tight and i like to use
one continuous piece of jute twine i think it helps it hold more sturdy i'm just creating like
a spiderweb look here so that i have somewhere to clip my cards here's what the back looks like
with the jute twine on all of the nails it just is nice to have it kind of grip there
and then i added some clips that i covered in washi tape and then also these are just
little gingerbread stickers from hobby lobby this thing is so cute i absolutely love it i'm so
excited to use it this christmas it's bigger than the one i currently have and i love getting
christmas cards and so i want to make sure i can display all of them and this is going to
allow me to do that if you want a smaller option i had some scrap of the four inch wide planks so
i ended up painting one red and white and then i just nailed them together with two random
braces on the back just scrap i was using up and then i got these three inch letters from
amazon they were very affordable they're a cute font and i did christmas grams so similar to the
other one added some jute twine on either side and then you can add clips whether they be clipped
to your jute twine or glued onto the sign you just want to make sure that your clip opening is
facing up or outward so you can put cards on them but this is a really great way to display your
christmas cards you can put this on a shelf you don't need to hang it anywhere it doesn't take up
a lot of space and it would be great for someone in an apartment where they want to display
their cards but don't have a ton of space now i had to recruit my buddy for this next one
because this is a little bit of a sentimental project this will be great for anybody that has
a little one in their life i took finn and my mom had to help but i ended up measuring him to
use his height for this next one so i'm grabbing another one of the six inch wide fence pickets and
i'm measuring it to the height of fin so he's 39 inches he's about 38 inches but i gave it a little
extra because i want this to be how tall he was at christmas and i'm also cutting a 1×2 for the hat
then we're going to start by painting it white and we're going to make a really cute snowman here
so about three quarters of the way up your white and then you're going to paint your little one by
two that you cut black as well as the top of the fence picket i decided to leave the dog ear at
the top but you could cut that off if you want to be a straight top hat so here's that coming
together and then it's time to add our face so i'm starting with a pencil to create a carrot nose
i like to give myself just a light outline instead of just winging it with the paint it helps because
you can erase the pencil on the white chalk paint and then i'm using a detailed brush to just paint
on the cute little carrot nose once that was dry so i didn't get orange paint all over my hand
i gave him two eyes and then some dots for his mouth i glued on the little hat piece and then i
added some white details with a white paint marker use some ribbon from my stash to give him a cute
little scarf and i ended up tucking it underneath so it looked more like a scarf instead of just
a bow tie and then the final touches were some greenery on the hat and then i also added some
dots down lower for his buttons this is so cute and i really love that it is the height of finn
i actually wrote on the back of the sign how tall he was and information about the first year in
our new home so in that way every year when we get it out we could say finn when we moved
into this house you were this tall i love the sentimental value and i can't take credit
for this idea because my mom usually does this for her kindergarten students to give to their
parents for christmas and this would also be a great grandparents gift as well if you enjoy my
videos be sure to take a second and head down and check out the subscribe box you want to make
sure that you have that bell clicked and that just means youtube will notify you every time i upload
a new video so you won't miss any of my content i recently saw a few different variations of these
churches on pinterest and i knew i had to try my hand at it so it is a big mashup plus my own
flair on some of these projects we're grabbing two of the skinnier fence pickets so the four
inch wide for this one and i'm cutting everything on my miter box here to show you that you don't
need a big saw to do these projects i am cutting some different pieces to a variety of lengths and
i'll show you the lengths in a minute and then i am also going to cut some at a 45 degree angle
and then some with a point like this so you're going to want a 14 inch long piece in the center
two 10 inch with 45 degree cuts on either side and then your bottom you can either do a 14
inch piece for a wider base or a 10 inch base for a smaller one and then we're going to stain
all of the pieces in that brier smoke now i was going for a rustic look here so i decided to use
some vaseline on top of dried stain and you don't want to use too much but you can add it to some
corners or the center and what it's going to do is it's going to resist the stain taking that
chalk paint that i'm putting on here here's what it looks like with a light coat and then once it
dries i'm taking a paper towel and just pulling downward on it and it's going to give you kind
of that chippy paint technique i saw this on tic tac and i knew i wanted to try it and i thought
these would be the perfect time so now there's a few ways that you can assemble your churches or
barns to make them look how you want i decided to do one like this where the two outside pieces were
overlapping and i am going to hook it together with these gorilla glue hot glue sticks they do
work on wood and so for little hobby crafts like this that aren't going to be holding any weight
it's a lot easier to hook them up like that then i'm adding some glue to the bottom and gluing
it down to my base and this is the 10 inch base for the white one i did them flush all three
across and this is a 14 inch base i put it on now to add some faux snow i mixed up some white
paint and some baking soda until it got thick and then i added it to the eaves of all of the
different parts of both churches you want to make sure you pile it up a little bit so it looks
like freshly fallen snow i also added some to the bottom as well and i think it turned out so
cute i love that i'm gonna be able to use these for both christmas as well as just winter
snowy decor and then the final touch was some jute twine and some little sprigs from this
greenery pick i had in my stash from hobby lobby super simple and super rustic really easy to make
and these also i think would sell really well at a vendor show as i was randomly scrolling pinterest
recently i saw this image of the stocking holder and i knew i had to make it this is what inspired
the entire video this is from the blog beyond the fence picket i will link her blog down below
she's got a lot of cute fence picket projects now for this you are going to want to grab some
of those larger six inch pickets i grabbed three for a total of 567.
So then we're going to go
through and make all of our cuts for our snowmen now we did five snowmen but i only had three
dog-eared tops so i set my saw to 35.3 degrees and i ended up cutting the tops of some of the pieces
so they matched so here's everything i mentioned before the outside two are 14 inches the middle
one is 13 inches and then the two smaller ones are 12 inches then i grabbed a 1 by 2 laid it down
and measured where i wanted it to kind of hang off like their hat brim and i cut that down to size
so that it fit like this then my last step was to take some more of that wider fence picket and
lay it across the back to kind of figure out how long it needed to be and this is going to allow us
to hook all of our snowmen together as one piece so here are all my pieces of wood that i cut for
my snowmen now it's time to paint so i painted all of them about the bottom three quarters in white
and then i laid them all out so i could figure out where i needed to put the hat i painted the 1×2
with black matte chalk paint and then i ended up laying it down and marking where i wanted the hat
brim so i knew how far down the black paint needed to go then i repeated what i did with the white
so that i have these black and white tops of the dog-eared fence pickets now because they are all
different heights i went through and put some blue painters tape in the center of all of them kind of
where i wanted all the faces to line up because i was doing them individually and that really helped
so that when they get put together all the faces are even even though they aren't the same size
now i'm doing a similar face to what i did for the fin height fence picket earlier i'm just kind
of drawing it out and then i'm laying them next to each other to figure out where i want the nose
to line up and also what way i want them to face i also added on top of the wet orange paint a little
bit of brown paint and mixed it in that just gave a little bit of depth to the carrot with it still
being one solid orange color once those were dry i did the same face that i did on that other one
so two eyes and then five dots for the mouth and once those were dry it was time to assemble so
i'm gonna lay all of them face down in the order that i want and make sure that the bottom is
flush that i'm taking my kind of stringer piece across the back my brace laying it down and
then using my one inch nails to nail it down the one inch nails are key here because you don't
want it popping through the face of your snowman but one inch works perfect and then i'm doing the
same thing with the hat now i had some holes on the top from the nail gun so i decided to use some
plastic wood it's just wood filler i only needed a little bit it's a teeny tiny hole from the
brad nail i filled it sanded it and then ended up adding a little bit more of that black chalk
paint so you wouldn't even know the nails were in there now i wanted to add the hook similar to
the inspiration so that if i wanted to hang stuff i could so i got these little black hooks in a big
pack from amazon i ended up drilling some pilot holes and then screwing them into the center
of each board to finish it off i just tied on some christmas ribbon because i want to be able
to switch out the red tart and ribbon for maybe a black and white buffalo check after christmas
so that this is something that could go through christmas into my winter decor while i was looking
for inspo for this video i came across funky junkie interiors on pinterest and she has a lot of
pictures of decorating with old coca-cola crates i've wanted one for so long but i haven't
been able to find one so i'm going to use scrap from some of these six inch wide pickets
i'm cutting two pieces at 20 inches long and two pieces at eight inches long that is going to allow
me to make my box i also grabbed from menards some of these old like hammered looking vintage
drawer pulls and those are going to be the handles on my box to drill holes for my handles i'm just
taking some painters tape applying it to the back of my pole and then because it's indented that
allows me to use it to drill directly through the painters tape so i know right where the holes need
to be i'm using that same piece on the other side so it is the right size in the right location
and to give it that old worn look i'm going to take some water and some gray acrylic paint
mix it up and i'm going to gray wash this wood so i'm just putting it on and then i'm using
an old sock to really buff it in so that it's not like covering like paint it's just kind of
a wash this makes it look really weathered and it looks like you got it off of a palette which
is awesome then to assemble my box it was really simple i just took some wood glue on either
side of the eight inch piece used a clamp to hold it down if you don't have a clamp you could
just use a friend with hands to help you hold it and then while the wood glue is setting i'm also
going to use those one inch nails that i got for the other sign and i'm just going to nail it
together now if you don't have nails you can absolutely use screws for this just make sure
you drill pilot holes i touched up any areas that i missed with the gray wash and then i
added in my handles and my box was complete now for the coca-cola element i'm going to
use that magic cover that i talked about earlier from dollar tree i like to use this for
stencils you just apply it right to your mat and you put it in your cricut just like you'd
cut vinyl i had my assistant help me here and i cut it on the washi tape setting it
cuts really great for me you just want to make sure you have a sticky mat i went ahead
and weeded it like a stencil so i weeded out the inside of it used my paper transfer tape from
expressions vinyl and applied it right to my box and then i'm doing the same thing that i did
on the card holder earlier just stippling up and down with some black paint now the
goal here is to make sure you can see the outline of the drink coca-cola but you don't
have all of it covered so it looks rustic now this image i kind of piecemealed together from
a few different logos so i will link this file over on my blog that i put together so you can
use it for free if you want to do the same thing now while it's wet i am peeling it off so it
doesn't seal down to my wood at all and that is it super quick and easy it turned out so much better
than i even thought i think it really looks like the inspiration and for christmas i do plan to add
some greenery inside of it but i also like that i could flip the box around and it has one side
that is plain so this is gonna be really multi-use decor not just christmas now we've cut up a lot
of wood in this video and that left me with a lot of scraps and you guys know i'm a sucker for
a good scrap wood project so here's what i did with my scraps i took some large and small scraps
and cut them into squares and then i painted them with some nutmeg brown so the same color
that we did the gingerbread houses earlier i decided to make some gingerbread men and women
so i started by adding some red paint and buffing it in with my finger and then i got these little
unfinished wood pieces off of amazon for the nose i painted those red and then i started to
draw the face so i did circle eyes i added some eyelashes for my gingerbread woman a little
smiley face over the cheeks and then my noses you can add some additional detail with a white
paint marker and then i glued on all of my noses and finished it off with some rick rack ribbon
around the top and the bottom i did white on my three small ones and then red and white on my
larger like gingerbread mommy that it looks like and these turned out so cute these were a
great use of scrap they go really well with my sign as well as my little gingerbread
cookies that i made earlier in the video and they're also great with my little marshmallows
i made that in my baking video last year so check out that video if you want to see that tutorial i
also wanted to use some of my scraps and my jigsaw to make some fun shapes for a tiered tray so i
started by kind of sketching out a circle and then i used my jigsaw to cut around the top to create a
curved surface i also did the same thing with some four inch wide fence pickets then because it's
curved i went through with my power sander and used my wrist to kind of rock it here so that it's
giving it a sanded look but also curved make sure all of your edges are sanded down and then we're
gonna make these into some cute little beanie hats so i got a pack of christmas fabric just some
fat quarters off of amazon they had some really cute prints i cut a piece to size and then stuck
it down with hot glue the mod podge just wasn't cooperating here with wood and fabric so i decided
to just use hot glue then i'm going to stretch the pieces on the straight sides as much as i can
because it's not going to gap on me because they are straight sides tuck in your edges and then
i went around the top and created some slits so then that way i could kind of pull it tight so you
could still see the curve at the top of the wood once that was all glued down all i needed to do
was cut another piece of fabric just to cover over the top to make sure the back was covered
because you'll see it from different angles on a tiered tray then it was time for embellishments
so i created a pom-pom with these new pom-pom makers i ordered off of amazon i really like them
and they're really easy to use to create pom-poms they're really affordable as well i made it trim
the edges and then glued it onto the top of my hat and then i took some more of that white
yarn and wrapped it around the bottom of the hat to make it look a little
bit more like a folded over beanie i made a variety of different sizes from the
scrap and i also like that i did the green and white so i could use those for winter decor
as well and these are so cute i love the prints and they're going to be a perfect addition to my
holiday tiered trays thanks so much for watching be sure to leave me a comment and let me know
what your favorite project was today and also head down to the description box for a link to that
full playlist so you can see everybody's video a huge thank you to shannon for inviting me
to be a part of this collab and be sure to check out that christmas channel you will
be so happy that you did and hit subscribe if you're new so you don't miss a future
video i'll catch you in the next one bye